


Five Tags

by edna_blackadder



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E.
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-09-06
Updated: 2009-09-06
Packaged: 2017-12-07 08:19:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/746354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/edna_blackadder/pseuds/edna_blackadder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Missing scenes from Illya and Napoleon’s last five affairs (“Gurnius,” “Man From THRUSH,” “Maze,” “Deep Six” and “Seven Wonders of the World”).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Tags

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to sarcasticsra for the beta.

_1._

Napoleon is still shaking intermittently from the electric shocks, and he looks like a drowned rat. Yet he’s as polite as ever to Terry and reasonably civil to me, so just for a moment I stupidly let myself believe that maybe this isn’t as bad as I think, that he understands that I was doing my job and saving his life and Terry’s, and that life can go on as normal.

It’s only when he calmly asks the hotel receptionist for three separate rooms instead of two that I know I was right the first time: things are not all right and he’s this close to killing me with his bare hands.

He escorts Terry to her room and bids her a charming good night, determinedly ignoring his utterly pathetic appearance. It works less because he’s really that smooth and more because she’s still in shock and staring daggers at me. When the door closes behind her, he stalks off to his own room without sparing me even a cursory glance. I wander off to my own room and unlock the door. Once I am inside I carefully, silently shut it. I haven’t wanted to slam a door so badly since I was a very small child. I lie down on the bed, not bothering to take my shoes off.

We’ve fought before, but never like this. He never shuts me out. Usually I shut him out. He hates this, but he accepts it. Usually he waits out my silent treatment and we forget the matter without resolving it, but once in a while he apologizes, sincerely. This is worse than when he doesn’t, because I never expect it. I forgive him immediately because I now hate myself for selling him short. I go from impugning every aspect of his character to wondering how and why he puts up with me in less than a minute.

I’ve never apologized to him before, even when I should have. I’ve also never been forced to torture him to within an inch of his life to maintain my cover before. Sighing heavily I get up. I slip out quietly, find his room and knock. He doesn’t answer.

I knock again. “Napoleon?” I ask softly. He still does not answer. In spite of myself I am becoming annoyed. “Napoleon?” I ask again, not too loud but loud enough to disturb the other guests if he doesn’t open the door.

He knows defeat when he hears it, so he opens the door a crack. Then he looks me directly in the eyes and says, painfully quietly, “You don’t want to be around me right now.”

“Please, Napoleon. I came to apologize.”

Napoleon shakes his head. “Save it,” he replies, and starts to turn around.

“I don’t—” I start, but he cuts me off.

“Save it for when you actually have something to apologize for,” he says harshly, and then he closes the door in my face. He doesn’t slam it, but the way my head is spinning he might as well have done. I turn around and head back to my room, and for a moment I have trouble with the door because I’m shaking all over. I lie down, but it doesn’t help. I am still shaking involuntarily, and maybe I’d be less frightened if this had ever happened before, but it hasn’t. It does eventually stop of its own accord, but my mind is still racing.

He’s quiet on the plane back to New York, and he’s pleasant at HQ. This does nothing whatsoever to allay my fears that the ground has been pulled out from under me.

_2._

Napoleon left three days ago. He is on a mission without me. Ordinarily this wouldn’t bother me; after all I was sent off without him fairly recently. But ever since our last mission he has been guarded with me in a way he hasn’t been in years, treating me like some colleague rather than his partner. I was prepared for all kinds of verbal abuse, expecting it from the very second I realized what I would have to do, but his indifference is far worse than his anger.

More alarming is that he hasn’t gone alone, but with Andreas Petros. More alarming even than that is that I have no idea what he means by it. I don’t know if he’s just temporarily avoiding me while he cools down, or if this affair with Petros is a test run for something more permanent. The former I can understand, but if he’s actually thinking of ending our partnership, I will have no choice but to request a transfer. I wouldn’t be able to stand his surface politeness, let alone the shift of his affectionate friendship to anyone else.

I’ve long since accepted that Napoleon will never feel about me as I do about him. His preference for women is hardly his fault, though his utter lack of shame about it can be quite appalling. I long for him, but I do not pine. I am content to have him as my partner and friend, secure in the knowledge that here, at least, I mean as much to him. That is more than enough for me. Unconsciously I have managed to build my entire life around him. I will retire when he does, despite being two years younger.

I drag myself home after an insufferably boring day of paperwork and pour a shot of vodka as a matter of course. Its warmth is comforting, but I need something else. Something dangerous, something I haven’t spent most of my life developing a tolerance for. I have a bottle of scotch, entirely because of Napoleon. I try a shot, only to be immediately reminded of why I never join him in it. Then I notice a very old bottle of French wine.

I have surprisingly little head for wine. I open the bottle and pour a glass. Overly acidic, but only because I’m drinking too much of it. Wine is meant to be sipped, but that would seem to defeat the purpose.

Halfway through the bottle I realize that I haven’t eaten anything. Also that I have succeeded in getting very unpleasantly drunk for the first time since leaving Moscow. My head spins. I try lying down for a while, but this makes it worse. I’m nauseated in a way that only a real idiot can achieve. Just in time, I get up and make for the toilet.

When I finish I curl up on the floor. This pointless misery isn’t over yet. Then I hear a knock at the door. I’m in no shape to answer. Whoever it is knocks again and I moan in response. Then the door opens and I realize it’s either Napoleon, who has his own key, or THRUSH. I fumble for my gun, incurring another wave of nausea.

“Illya?” It’s Napoleon’s voice.

“Augh,” I reply.

“Where are you?” He sounds worried.

“Bathroom,” I manage to answer.

There’s a pause. I think I hear him mutter something, and then he bursts in. He bends down and cups my face. That would feel wonderful if my stomach weren’t about to rebel again. “You’re drunk?” he asks softly, with a hint of incredulity. I nod. He laughs. “I never thought I’d see the day.” Then I start to gag and he immediately lifts me up and points my head towards the toilet.

When I finish he dabs my face with a washcloth. “Napoleon—” I start to protest, but he is not interested. He fills a cup with tap water and presses it into my hands. I swallow gratefully.

“I’ll be right back.” With that he gingerly rests me on the floor and leaves. In a minute he returns with a pillow and a blanket. He gently lifts my head and places the pillow under it, then covers me with the blanket. Suddenly I feel much less awful, though whether it because the alcohol is out of my system or because Napoleon is here, caring for me without question, I do not know.

“Thank you,” I mutter before closing my eyes.

He smiles. “You’re thanking me? You should do this more often.”

I roll over to hit him and quickly realize this was a big mistake. “Augh,” I moan. He laughs and steadies me.

“Go to sleep,” he orders, and I obey immediately.

When I wake up, Napoleon is not there. It’s about four in the morning, my head is throbbing and I think I might have burned off the entire back of my throat. I stumble into my bedroom, too tired and miserable to wonder when he left. It’s only when I wake up again, at ten-thirty, that I learn he didn’t leave at all. I take a scalding hot shower and then wander into my kitchen in an indecent robe, not expecting to find a plate of pancakes and a cup of black coffee laid out for me. Napoleon is sitting across the table, his face hidden behind the newspaper. He lowers it and says, by way of greeting, “Eat that, and then tell me what possessed you to get stinking drunk last night. I didn’t know you could get that drunk.”

My throat is still burning and my stomach is not even close to stable. I have no desire to eat anything, but he puts the newspaper aside so that he can watch me and make sure I do. I sip the coffee and force down about half the food. It does help a little, but I still feel like dying. “Enough?” I ask, making clear with my tone that it had better be.

“Plenty. Now, why was it necessary?”

I shake my head, my face hardening. “Guess,” I say, none too kindly.

To my surprise he softens. “I guess I deserved that,” he mutters, his eyes downcast. Then he looks straight at me and says, “If my guess is right, your instinct wasn’t entirely wrong. I have been avoiding you and I did go off with Andreas on purpose. And he’s a fine agent, whom I’m proud to serve alongside, who does not even begin to compare to you. I came over last night to apologize.”

I shake my head. “Don’t you dare apologize to me. I nearly killed you.”

“So you did. But I proceeded to let myself doubt you, after everything we’ve been through together...” He trails off, and then after a moment he adds quietly, “I missed you.”

For a few seconds I grin in spite of myself. I nod and reply, unable to keep the emotion out of my voice, “I missed you too.”

Napoleon looks and sounds relieved. “Well, good. That’s settled, then.”

“Yes,” I say. My stomach, however, is decidedly not settled. “I’d like to take a nap now.”

He laughs, then stands up to collect our plates. “You do that. Good night, tovarisch.”

“Good morning.” I turn around and head back to bed, but no sooner are my eyes closed than I hear him knocking. “Yes?”

He enters, typically, without my permission, and then he crosses the room and, to my surprise, lies down next to me. “Do you mind?” he asks calmly. “I didn’t sleep very well either. Your couch is hard as a rock.”

“Fine,” I say, not looking at him, but suddenly not tired at all. For a while I lie awake, very aware of his body so achingly close to mine, but eventually my physical state gets the better of me and I sleep anyway.

When I wake up I discover to my horror that Napoleon and I are entangled in each other’s arms. My head is buried in his shoulder and one of his hands is in my hair, stroking gently. “Illya?” he murmurs.

“I’m sorry—” I start, but he interrupts.

His voice is very heavy. “I don’t mind, if you don’t.”

Shock races through me as I wonder if that can possibly mean what I’d like it to mean, what I’ve never even for a minute dreamed I would hear him say. When I answer, “I don’t mind,” my voice is barely more than a squeak.

_3._

I drink often, but rarely beyond my limit. Yet now I am drunk for the second time in one week, but not nearly as drunk as Napoleon. Between us we’ve managed to empty a bottle of vodka, and his tolerance, though not bad for an American, has nothing on mine. We did eat, though, so luckily he is not sick.

Luckily, he is not dead. For I truly believed it this time. And perhaps I was simply in shock, but instead of grief I felt only anger. Napoleon and I could both have died at least a hundred times before. THRUSH finally managing to kill him now, just when my impossible dream might have become possible, added the worst insult to the worst injury.

And yet he had it worse. He not only thought I was dead, but that we were all dead. We got in touch with him quickly, but when he returned he looked twice as exhausted as I felt.

As soon as we were alone, he invited me to join him in a bottle of “your lighter fluid,” making clear that it was not a request, and here I am, next to him on his couch. He swallows down the last shot and then drops his glass on my foot. “Sorry ’bout that.” He attempts to pick it up, but loses his balance and falls headfirst onto the floor. “Ow.”

At first I laugh, but when he doesn’t move I start to worry. I lean down and hoist him back up. He doesn’t struggle, and his eyes are closed. “Napoleon?” I ask uncertainly, patting his face lightly.

His eyes spring open. “Sorry...not feeling so well...spinning. I knew I’d regret this. May I?” and before I can respond, he’s shifting. He lies down on his back, resting his head on my lap, and I am suddenly very glad I am drunk.

I am about to make a smart remark about his presumption, but then my eyes catch his and I see that he is gazing up at me with love. He reaches for one of my hands and holds it tight. My heart races and I no longer trust myself to say anything. After a moment, I decide to stroke his hair. He sighs contentedly and is asleep within minutes.

I can’t move, and I have never wanted to less.

_4._

“We have each other.”

Despite all that has happened recently, I still barely manage to say those words. I have no idea how Napoleon might react. He turns away from me and for a terrible moment I am afraid I have gone too far, that I should never have dared to say it out loud.

But then he turns back and I see that he has taken off the ring he usually wears. “Yes, we do,” he says quietly. And then he takes my hand and closes it around his ring. “I don’t expect you to wear this, but take it anyway.”

I take it, thoroughly confused. “Did you just propose to me?”

He shakes his head, his eyes light with amusement. “No. You proposed to me. I merely answered you.”

I swallow and try to affect nonchalance. “Well, as we appear to be engaged now, perhaps you’d like to tell me what’s going on.”

He suddenly looks worried. “You really don’t know?”

I sigh heavily, purely to borrow a few seconds before answering. “I have a hypothesis, but no conclusion.”

He relaxes. “Fair enough. Stop me if I’ve confused any of the details.” He pauses, then continues. “I thought, for a long time, that there might be something...er, something more...between us. I never said anything to you because I was never sure. I didn’t know if this was something I wanted unearthed or not. For my part I was content with the way things were, and for yours...well, I can’t read your mind, Illya. It was just a guess, and if it turned out to be a wrong one I had no way of knowing how you’d take it. I wasn’t about to risk our partnership.”

He takes a breath and I struggle to digest that. I’m torn between shock that he has apparently long returned my feelings and confusion over exactly how I was supposed to know that. I can’t read his mind either, after all. “Go on.”

“Then...well...then I nearly lost you. I was in...a dark place. I knew you’d saved us all, but that wasn’t stopping me from wanting to…” he trails off, looking thoroughly ashamed of himself. “I really am sorry for shutting you out like that and trying to put distance between us. It was senseless on every level.”

I shake my head fiercely. “No, it wasn’t. I’d have felt the same and done the same. I tortured you to within an inch of your life, Napoleon. How could I possibly blame you for reacting?”

He holds up a hand to stop me. “Let’s not go through this again. I went off with Andreas and everything went fine. But he wasn’t you and I missed you. I already told you that much. But I knew then that, at least for me, restoring the status quo wouldn’t be enough. I realized just how much I needed you. How much I love you.”

My breath catches in my throat and my hand clenches tightly around his ring. “And then you found me in the midst of the same revelation. That does explain our little afternoon nap.”

He smiles. “I didn’t plan that. I didn’t plan anything, to be honest. It just seemed a handy way to gauge your feelings on the subject. You left me quite encouraged.”

My face reddens. “Then I started it.”

“You did indeed, but I continued it.”

“And then you got drunk and started it again.”

“I didn’t see you complaining.”

“And just how many of me were you seeing at that point, may I ask?”

He grins. “Touché. So, what do you think? Does my data support your hypothesis?”

I grin back at him. “It does, but the matter is still inconclusive. Perhaps we ought to go home and conduct further research.”

He almost laughs, but manages to control himself. “Yes, of course. Very responsible of you, not to jump to conclusions. Shall we go to my apartment? It has a bigger, ah, lab table.”

“Certainly,” I reply. “Very kind of you to offer. Is this lab table available now?”

“It has never been more so. Shall we?”

_5._

We’ve just saved the world, but Napoleon looks bitterly, heartrendingly defeated. I’ve certainly never seen him so quiet. We board the plane and he takes a seat across from Mr. Waverly, and I sit down next to him, as close as I dare. Steve and Anna sit huddled in their own corner, as distant from us as possible. He wraps an arm around her shoulders, and I feel a rush of bitter envy.

Napoleon’s listlessness frightens me. Now more than ever I want to touch him, to kiss him, to demonstrate beyond a shadow of a doubt the depth of my feelings—anything to draw a response from him, to snap him out of this state. It is all out of the question and it will be hours before we can be alone.

Then Anna complains that she is cold and Steve asks the stewardess for a blanket, and suddenly I have an idea. I clear my throat and address Mr. Waverly. “I am very tired, sir. Would you mind if I sleep?”

Mr. Waverly shrugs dismissively. “Of course not, Mr. Kuryakin. Go ahead.”

“Thank you, sir.” The stewardess brings me a blanket and a pillow. Careful to affect carelessness, I sloppily throw the blanket across my lap, allowing it to spill over both Napoleon’s arm and half the empty seat on my other side. Napoleon looks up, startled, and he blinks with surprise when I seize his hand. With my free hand I carefully place the pillow behind my head, and then I close my eyes. Then I start tracing circles over the back of Napoleon’s hand with my thumb, and I can feel his pulse jump. To his credit he does not make a sound, but he does squeeze my hand with encouraging force.

After a seemingly interminable flight and an even less tolerable meeting, we are finally dismissed. I grab his arm and usher him toward my car, more impatient than ever as we manage to hit practically every light red and frustrated beyond reason at Napoleon’s passive silence. When at last we reach my apartment I carelessly slam the door behind us, and then I kiss Napoleon fiercely. He responds with desperate need, and we barely make it to the bedroom.

Afterward, with my head pressed against his chest, I finally get the words out. “Please tell me you don’t regret this. We saved the world. Kingsley was going to destroy mankind’s free will, Napoleon.”

He wraps an arm around my back, then replies solemnly, “I don’t regret anything. I know that. I actually gave Kingsley quite the lecture. But it’s still rather uncomfortable being a man who deliberately acted to obstruct world peace.”

I groan. “You are entirely too idealistic for your own good. And yet I don’t know what it says about me that I never even thought of that.”

His hand moves upward, tangling itself in my hair. “What it says is that you’re infinitely more sensible, and that I’m unreasonably lucky to have you. But you weren’t treated to his propaganda. You didn’t see how fervently he believed in what he was doing. Kingsley’s scheme was insane and so was he, but he wasn’t an evil man. I didn’t want to kill him, Illya, I wanted to help him.”

At that, all I can do is embrace him. His compassion astounds me, as it always has. “I love you,” I mutter helplessly.

He makes a soft, amused noise, then pulls me upward, so that we are face-to-face. He kisses me tenderly and I answer with passion. When we break apart for air I see that he is smiling, and finally, finally, I am reassured that things will be all right. He plants a quick kiss on my forehead, and then he says quietly, “I’m not entirely sure why, but I’m very glad all the same.”

“Don’t fish for compliments,” I warn him sternly. “Not when we could be doing more, shall we say, productive things.”

He is silent for a moment, then says contemplatively, more to himself than to me, “Imagine a world where we couldn’t do such things. A world where we couldn’t love without being told to.”

I shake my head. “I don’t want to imagine that. I want to live in this world.” I punctuate that with a hard kiss.

When I pull away, I am pleased to see that he is panting. He is also smiling, and his arms are wrapped tightly around me. “So do I,” he replies, and then he kisses me lightly. “I love you, Illya, and now more than ever I want to show you how much.”

Without warning he flips us over. He kisses me ardently and his hands venture everywhere, and I happily lose the ability to form coherent thoughts.


End file.
